Surviving High School
by Strawberry Haze
Summary: Zack and Cody enter high school where Cody is immediately picked on and Zack is pulled into a circle of drugs. Cody depends on Zack as his protector, but what if even Zack dissapears?
1. Prologue

**Author's Note**: This is a story written by CRIMS0N HAZE and StrawberryFinn. Neither of us own _The Suite Life_ or the characters, except for the ones we make up on the way. This story will involve some violence and angst and dramatic pain, so you have been warned. We hope you enjoy. Finn wrote this chapter.

Prologue:

"Zack! Stop it! Zack? What are you doing?"

Zack flinched. His mother was yelling, but somehow her voice seemed to be magnified. He just wanted her to shut up and stop talking.

"ZACK!"

He cowered away. God, his mother talked _loud _sometimes.

"Zack!"

He looked up at her, his head throbbing with dizziness. Why was she talking so loud? Why was she screaming? _What did she want? _

"STOP IT!" he yelled back, wishing that his mother would stop yelling and making his headache even worse than it already was.

He stared at his mother; she was crying. Why was she crying? Her eyes were all red, her eyelids swollen as her makeup ran down her face in black streaks—tears trickled in steady trails down her face… why was she crying? What was going on? She was bawling, sobbing… sobbing…

_What's happening?_ Zack asked himself, his heart pounding. He'd never seen his mom cry like this in his life besides the time when she had had to explain the divorce. _What is going on?_

"Don't hurt Cody," Carey said. "Don't hurt Cody, please Zack, don't hurt Cody." Her voice was falling to a pathetic whisper. "Please don't hurt Cody, please don't Zack."

_Hurt Cody? What was she talking about? Why would he hurt Cody? _

Zack glanced around the room—everything seemed to blend together like a blurry photograph. His mom's face became strangely distorted, and he looked wildly around—across the suite, at the table, at his mom's teary eyes, down to the knife in his hand… _what?_

He looked harder at the knife, which became fuzzy at the edges. Oh God, what was going on? He tried to focus on the knife and the knife only, following the blade down to the tip—which was pressed against Cody's throat.

_What am I doing? _

Zack knew more than anything in the world that he should pull the blade far away from Cody's neck and drop it. _Drop it, Zack. Drop it, you dork! DROP IT! _His brother's eyes were glazed with shock as he glanced up at his older twin, silent tears seeping from his eyelids as he tried not to move.

Zack wanted to drop it. Drop the knife and hold Cody tight and tell him he was never ever going to hurt him. But wanting to do it and doing it were two different things.

No matter how hard he tried, Zack couldn't pull the knife away. He didn't know why, and it scared him more than anything had ever before. He just knew that standing there, holding the knife against his brother's jugular vein, was something he had to do. Nothing made sense anymore, but something told him he needed to hurt Cody, gut his throat out—kill his little brother.

_Why do I want to do this?_ Zack asked himself, but all he could hear was a buzzing, throbbing sound in his ears. He couldn't remember anything; he couldn't hear anything. He couldn't even make out what his mother was saying anymore, her mouth just seemed to move, and the words were unintelligible.

Cody let out a choked, muffled sob as Zack stood up and backed towards a wall, still holding the knife firmly at his twin's throat. Silvery tears matted his eyelashes together, and he let out a small shuddery breath.

"Please Zack, please, stop," he whispered, wanting to believe that this was not his brother, that this was anyone but Zack and thatZack wouldn't do this to him.

"Zack, please don't hurt Cody," Carey was begging now, and out of the corner of his eye, Zack saw his mother reach for the phone and start to dial 9-1-1. Zack let his instincts take over, and spat out, "Drop that phone or else I'll _kill _him."

Cody felt panic rise in his throat as Zack pushed the blade even harder against his Adam's apple. Carey hurriedly dropped the phone as she heard Cody let out a strangled yelp of pain. The knife made a small cut, and Cody could feel the blood trickling slowly down his neck.

_Please Zack, stop it, what are you doing?_ Cody prayed silently to himself, wanting Zack to put the knife down and come back to him. For the real Zack to come back, and not this intoxicated, drug-addicted teen who had taken his brother's place.

Zack felt his brother's blood running over his fingers, and he finally got control of what he was doing. _Oh my God._ He pulled the blade away from Cody's throat, but something told him that he couldn't just leave it like that—he had to hurt Cody somehow… he had to hurt Cody somehow…

With a snarl, he grabbed his brother and slashed at what he first hit with the knife—and Cody grabbed the knife to stop it from connecting with his throat. The blade split through Cody's hand, and blood spattered to the floor. Cody yelped in pain as Zack continued the cut with a steady line down the middle of the back of Cody's hand, causing more blood to drip out onto the already bloody ground.

Carey caught Cody before he fell to the ground. Cody was left staring at his brother in pain and horror. Zack somehow looked even more shocked than Cody did, and as Cody moaned softly, Zack turned and fled the suite, leaving his mother's horrified sobs and Cody's whimpers of pain.

_How did it all come to this?_ Cody asked he entered darkness, hearing his mother's hysterical cries.

Outside, Zack was staggering and asking himself the same thing. _How did it all come to this? _Life had been fine, the boys had always been best friends. He'd been a straight edge, a pure and untouched person until those drugs and alcohol. Why did it have to be this way? How did it get this way?

As Zack crumpled to his knees in regret and pain, he realized the answer. It had all been fine, life had been perfect.

Until they had entered high school.

A bit of a foreshadowing thing, I guess. Review? Miss Haze's chapter is next.


	2. Chapter One

**Author's Note**: Rose wrote this chapter… hope you like it

The hallways of Washington High School were practically oozing with people. Zack Martin sighed as he slowly made his way down the hall from his English class. He usually walked at a quicker pace, but ever since he started high school, where the traffic in the hallways was at a stand-still, he had to adapt to walking slow.

As he continued on his way, he thought about the changes that had been made in the passed few weeks. For one thing, he was a high school student. That was a big change. He was meeting a lot of new people, but he had not really made any friends. He did not have many classes with his friends from middle school. He had lunch and gym at the same time with Bob, but that was all.

The biggest change he was going though was the fact that he and Cody were no longer together constantly. In fact, he hardly ever saw Cody anymore. He was always studying when they were at home. And at school they did not have any classes together. Cody was in all the honor classes. And in math he was in a class with sophomores.

'_It's weird_,' Zack mused silently as the hallways began to clear and he was able to walk faster, '_I don't even miss him that much._'

When Zack and Cody got their schedules in the mail at the end of the summer, it scared Zack when he found out that they did not have any classes together. He did not admit this to Cody, of course.

'_I guess it's good that we're finally doing things on our own._'

All of the sudden, Zack realized that he didn't know where he was going. He still did not have his schedule memorized. He stood close to the wall and dropped his backpack to the floor. He rummaged through it for his schedule. The crowd in the hall was dispersing. There were only a few students left scrambling to their classes.

'_I'm going to be late again_,' he realized glumly, '_great._' He began to rummage through his backpack, trying to find his schedule.

"Look, there he is!" said a voice from behind.

Zack ignored it. He continued to search for this schedule until he felt the presence of people behind him. The silhouettes of three kids covered him. He looked up and was face to face with three people who he had never seen before. They didn't look happy.

"Um… hi?" he said nervously.

"We need to talk to you," said the kid who was standing in the middle. He grabbed Zack by the shoulders and pulled him up. He pinned him against the wall. He was not that much taller than Zack, but he was strong. He had a good grip on him. His shaggy reddish blonde hair fell across his forehead

Zack quickly weighed his options. He could kick the guy in the shins, than make a run for it. Or he could start screaming for help like a little baby.

'_This is crazy_,' Zack thought, _'I'm totally outnumbered.'_

"Are you even going to say anything, Martin?" the guy taunted.

"How—how do you know my name?"

The three of them laughed.

"Oh, I don't know," said the kid who was holding him against the wall, "Maybe it's because I just spent forty-five minutes listening to Mrs. Horton saying 'nice job, Mr. Martin' and 'that's correct Mr. Martin'"

"What?" Zack said, thoroughly confused, "What are you talking about?"

The guy beside him laughed, "Now he's trying to play dumb, Patrick. Let's just get this over withso we can get out of here."

"You want me to beat you up, Martin?" Patrick asked, "Because there is a way you can get out of this."

Zack stared at him, "Can you just tell me what's going on?"

"We're failing math and it's because of you." Patrick said, "Half the class is failing and it's all because you keep messing up the curve."

"What are you talking about?" Zack asked angrily, his voice raising. He was not worried about the fact that he was outnumbered three to one; he was getting more annoyed.

"Is there a problem here?" inquired a voice from behind the three boys.

For half a second, Zack felt relieved. A teacher would be able to get this creep to stop bothering him. But then he realized that the voice was too young sounding to be a teacher.

"Are you guys beating up freshmen again?"

"This one deserves it, man" said Patrick, "I can't fail again!"

"What are you talking about?"

'_Finally, someone else is as confused as I am,_' thought Zack.

The kid who was doing the talking walked around Patrick and Zack saw him. It was Brady Krieger, a sophomore in his gym class. He had dark, tanned skin and his hair was dyed platinum blonde. He and Zack were sort of friends.

"Zack?" he asked, surprised, "What did you do?"

"I don't know!" Zack exclaimed.

"I thought his name was Cody," said one of the guys who was standing next to Patrick.

"Yeah," Patrick said, frowning, "What's going on here?"

Zack shoved Patrick off of him, feeling reassured, "You're after my brother, not me."

"They're twins," Brady said with a laugh.

"Oh," Patrick said nonchalantly, "My bad."

"Yeah, whatever," Zack muttered as he bent down and picked up his backpack, "Now I'm late."

'_And I still don't know where I'm going!'_ he added silently.

"No wait, Zack," Brady called, jogging after him, "Why don't you come with us? You're already late. If you skip you won't get in trouble. Teachers hardly ever take attendance anyways."

"Wait a minute," Patrick said, "I'm sorry I got him mixed up with his brother, but that doesn't mean he can hang out with us."

"He's cool, Pat," Brady said, "And it's your fault he's late. The least you could do is give him something to take his mind off of that."

"And he has to live with that loser," one of the other guys pointed out, "He probably needs something to take his mind off _that_."

The others laughed. Zack didn't. He knew that Cody could be annoying but that didn't mean that other people were allowed to insult him like that.

The group began to walk down the hall.

"You coming, Zack?" Brady asked.

Zack stared at his backpack, then at the other boys.

'_This could be my chance to finally start making friends_,' Zack said, '_that sounds a lot more fun than more school_.'

He slung his backpack over his shoulder, "Yeah," he replied, "I'm coming."

"By the way," said Brady, he motioned to the other two boys, "This is Eric and this is Steve."

Eric was the tallest of the group. He had dark brown hair that was down to his shoulders. He was wearing jeans and a leather jacket. Steve was also tall. He had spiky black hair and a pierced eyebrow. He wore a bright red hoodie.

Zack fell into step with the other boys, and they walked to the cafeteria. There was a lunch period going on so they did not look suspicious at all. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cody. He was sitting with a small group of kids.

'_Don't see me, Cody,' _he prayed silently. Cody knew that Zack did not have lunch that period.He also hoped that the guys didn't see Cody. Zack knew that Cody could be annoying, but he was still his brother. He felt like he had to protect him.

The boys walked through the cafeteria to get to the courtyard outside.

Zack stepped out into the warm September air. He made to sit down on one of the benches that encircled a fountain, but to his surprise, the group kept going.

"Uh, where are we going?" he asked.

"What part of the word 'skip' do you not understand?" Steve asked in a teasing voice.

"We're going to the Laundromat," Brady explained, "My older brother owns it. It's closed during the day so no one's there.

Zack frowned.

"We'll be back before next period," Brady told him, "Don't worry."

"That's not it," Zack said, "What is there to do at the Laundromat?"

Patrick and Steve started laughing.

"Yeah, Brady," Patrick said, "He's really cool."

Zack blushed, more with anger than embarrassment. Who did these idiots think they were to talk to him like that?

Brady pulled a small plastic bag out of his pocket and shoved it into Zack's hands, "_This_ is what there is to do at the Laundromat," he said quietly.

Zack glanced at the bag and his eyes widened. He had never seen what was in the bag in person before, but he knew exactly what it was.

It was a joint.

**That's all for now : ) Please review**


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